The Trick to Landing

by Jenny Kaczorowski

  She slipped it on, inhaling the lingering scent of wood smoke, patchouli, and weed clinging to it. The smell transported her so completely to the NorCal beaches that she almost choked.

  Sinking deeper into the hoodie, she set the photo of Tobey and Lola upright on her dresser and settled on the edge of the bed. She stuck her hands into the front pocket of the hoodie, where she’d stashed her fake ID and lighter in the flurry of leaving Dad’s place.

  Painful, deathly silent emptiness crushed her.

  So long as everything remained hidden in boxes, she could pretend she wasn’t staying. She could pretend she wouldn’t just have to pack again in a few months.

  She missed the numbness. She missed drowning out her own voice. She missed the bravado and confidence of drinking. With enough vodka, she could be the life of the party. She could kiss boys and laugh too loud and dance like she didn’t panic in crowds and wasn’t deathly afraid of failure.

  But even in that moment, she couldn’t quite regret the night of the DUI. Whoever had called the cops had done her a favor.

  She flicked the lighter a few times, watching the flame come to life and sputter out.

  Everything had escalated after the qualifier. She barely remembered most of the winter. She’d barely skated. Barely showed up at school. Until the DUI snapped her out of the tunnel vision of self-destruction.

  She tossed the lighter in the trash and picked up her phone to shoot Tobey a text before opening a box of books.

  The first two shelves were mostly full by the time her phone chirped. She picked it up to see a video chat from Tobey and grinned, her heart damn near exploding with relief.

  “Summer Girl!” The bright green of his eyes sparkled against his dark face. “What is up?”

  “Hey!” Lola pushed his dreads aside to squeeze into the tiny screen.

  “What are you guys doing?” Summer asked. She flopped down on the bed again.

  “Slow day,” Tobey said, turning his phone around to show off the cluttered shop she’d practically grown up in.

  “You did text.” Lola flipped her long blond hair over her shoulder. “You can’t send out an SOS and not expect an answer.”

  “When are you coming back?” Tobey asked, turning the camera back on himself.

  “Not soon enough.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “November. My hearing is scheduled for right after Thanksgiving.”

  “Sweet! Totally time for the qualifier!”

  Lola kissed his cheek. “Our baby skater is getting her second shot!”

  “If the judge approves,” Summer said.

  “Whatev. Of course he will.” Lola squinted. “Where are you? Those walls are the color of Pepto.”

  “I know, right? My mother actually painted them this color on purpose. Just for me.”

  “See,” Tobey said. “Cody totally dodged a bullet in the end. No offense, Summer Girl.”

  “I miss you guys.”

  A bell chimed. “Customer,” Tobey said. “We gotta split, but we love you. Stay out of trouble and come back to us.”

  “Seriously,” Lola said. “It’s a total sausage fest up here without you.”

  “Did you really just say that?” Summer said.

  “Later!” Tobey waved one last time and the screen went black, leaving her in silence again.

  Summer clutched her phone to her chest and lay back on the bed.

  Tobey and Lola always knew what to do. It was so much easier to just fall in line behind them. No one had to know who she really was. No one ever bothered to find out.

  Her arm bumped into her laptop.

  She could do better. If she was stuck in Oceanside, she might as well make the best of it. She opened the computer and rolled over to type “hemophilia” into the search engine.

  If she was going to attempt to let her new friends actually know her, she needed to know them too.

  Chapter 10

  The acrid scent of bleach and sickness burned the inside of Summer’s nose. The florescent lights—flickering too fast to see but enough to trigger an ache behind her eyes— bounced off over polished floors and aqua walls. Nurses in colorful scrubs and doctors in colorless coats streamed past her, clutching stethoscopes and studying charts.

  She’d always hated hospitals, but now she associated them with her mom’s pneumonia and how much her life had changed in that moment..

  “The supply closet is at the end of this hall.”

  Summer snapped her eyes back to the older black woman with close-cropped, stark white hair and full, rigid lips. Miss Rosie. Nothing about the volunteer coordinator at the hospital fit her name. Not her tense jaw or broad shoulders or disapproving scowl.

  “You’ll be responsible for bringing reading materials and refreshments to patients. You will not socialize or loiter. You will knock softly, enter if invited, offer juice or water and magazines, then leave. Understood?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Harrumph.” Miss Rosie frowned at her. “We usually don’t allow delinquents with substance abuse problems in this hospital. I don’t know what kind of strings you pulled, but one mistake and you’re out. Are we clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The older woman harrumphed again and stomped off down the hall, leaving Summer with the heavy, sinking feeling still attached to the word “delinquent.” After six months, half a year, of hearing it slapped on her like a brand, it should have lost its sting.

  It hadn’t. If anything, it hurt more each time. Because it was still true. She hadn’t atoned for anything. Yet.

  She straightened her pink-and-white-striped apron, stiff with starch and way too loose over her practically boobless chest. She half expected the ID hanging from the shoulder strap to read “Drunken Screwup” instead of “Candy Striper.”

  Juice and magazines. Four hours a day, three times a week. For 312 hours. The judge called it a light sentence. No time in a detention camp. No house arrest. Just a move away from everyone and everything she knew, and six months trapped in a hospital with that antiseptic smell burning her throat.

  She loaded up the cart like Miss Rosie had showed her and started her rounds.

  After three hours, two floors and a growing blister on her pinkie toe, she reached the children’s wing. The attempts at cheerfulness made it worse. Way worse. Like bright stripes of primary colors along the hallway could negate the fact that it was filled with kids who should be outside playing, not strapped down to stiff beds and hooked up to machines to keep their fragile bodies alive.

  She pulled the cart into an empty patient room and leaned over, head between her knees, to keep herself from hyperventilating.

  Next shift? She had to remember to eat first. The panicked, dizzy feeling receded and she straightened. She slowly released the air she’d trapped in her lungs, letting it whistle past her lips, then gripped the cart to head back into the cheerless, garish hall.

  “. . . the end.” A familiar voice drifted toward her and she moved toward it, unable to resist Bastian’s hypnotic pull.

  He sat, back toward the door, in the middle of some kind of playroom. His dark hair reflected the harsh lights, and the smiles on the kids’ faces reflected the one she heard in his voice.

  The steady set of his shoulders, even hunched inward over the book, and the calm movement of his hands settled her. She leaned against the doorjamb, listening to the half dozen or so kids clamor for another story.

  She should run. She meant to run. Staring at him like a deranged stalker was pretty much the exact opposite of keeping her distance and protecting herself.

  A tug on her apron drew her gaze to a small girl with oversize eyes, ringed by the deep purple of bruises. “Can I have some juice?”

  “Umm.” Summer scanned the room, looking for someone who might know. Miss Rosie had hammered into her head to not hand out juice until she knew if a patient was allowed it.

  “It’s all right,” a nurse said, smiling at her from across the playroom.

 
; Bastian turned and Summer’s heart went still. Good thing she was already in a hospital in case it didn’t kick-start again.

  “Hey, you.” His voice washed over her and, sure enough, her heart leaped to life. He rose from a tiny red chair, setting his book aside without looking away from her.

  “Hi.”

  “Candy striper?” The left side of his mouth twisted up in a wry smile. “Hot.”

  “Community service.”

  “I’m just here for the apple juice,” he said, swiping a foil-topped container from her cart. He handed it to the little girl and she skipped toward the nurse.

  “Don’t you hate being in a hospital?” she said. “I mean, with everything . . .”

  “I do.” His face tightened. “But I’ve spent enough time in places like this to know Curious George can make it suck a little less.”

  “God, you really are that nice, aren’t you?”

  He laughed. “You make that sound like a bad thing.”

  “No, I . . .” She swallowed back her glaring deficiencies.

  “I try to keep it quiet. Being nice and a bleeder would just make me an easy target.” His unspoken resentment and frustration gripped her; she just couldn’t find the words to fix it.

  “I should . . .” She pointed back toward the hall, while he handed out another juice.

  “Sure.” He followed her into the hall, matching his pace to hers.

  “I can’t push my luck, Bas,” she said. “If Miss Rosie catches me . . .”

  “Miss Rosie is more bark than bite,” he said. “She gave me this whole speech about how they don’t let teens interact with the patients.”

  “Yeah? I guess we’re both exceptions.”

  He looked at her, the question obvious in his eyes, but he didn’t press. “So what days are you here?”

  “Monday, Wednesday, Friday for the next six months.”

  “Six months?” He stopped walking to look at her. “What did you do? Never mind. That’s really invasive.”

  “No, it’s fine.” She knocked on a door, welcoming the time to collect her thoughts, figure out the best light to cast on her crimes. She knew exactly how he’d look at her if he knew the whole truth and she couldn’t handle that rejection, not from him. Not now.

  She handed over a cranberry juice and the latest issue of Teen Heartthrob to a preteen girl without hair.

  “Up north,” she began, veering back into the hall. “Most of my friends are a lot older. Like, over twenty-one older.”

  “So underage drinking?”

  She nodded, letting it go at that.

  “Sucks to get caught,” he said.

  “Yeah.” She smiled at him, letting the stress of her secrets bleed away. “Not really worth it either.”

  He shrugged. “I’m not supposed to drink anyway. My blood takes forever to clot. Adding alcohol to the mix is just stupid. You get drunk, bump into something, and bleed out before you even know you’re hurt.”

  “Oh, God.” One more thing to google.

  He shrugged again. “Anyway. I’m usually here on Wednesdays. Some Mondays. So if you ever wanted to hang out up here and read stories instead of telling lecherous old men we don’t have Hustler, I could call in some favors.”

  She had to bite down on her lower lip to keep her smile from breaking into an idiotic grin. Suddenly community service and the hospital and the stupid vintage uniform didn’t seem quite as bad as she’d expected at the start of the day.

  “But that hardly even seems like punishment,” she said. “I mean, I’m supposed to suffer for my crimes, aren’t I?”

  His face shifted again, that easy smile giving way to something hinting at depth and earnestness she hadn’t seen before and desperately wanted to explore. “Somehow I think you already have.”

  Chapter 11

  Summer’s stomach growled and she pressed her hand against it. With an entire period left until lunch, she sincerely regretted skipping breakfast again. She shouldered her way through the crowded hallway. The heat from the extra bodies and lack of air heightened the swirling nausea.

  Dad’s advice rang in her head: start the day with protein. Feed your muscles.

  Of course that’s why he was the twelve-time World Surf League champion and she still hadn’t qualified for competition.

  She slipped into the art room and settled on a stool at the front of the class with the other Art I students.

  “Psst. Summer!”

  She turned in answer to the anxious whisper and smiled at Bastian. He waved her toward the back of the room where he sat with Bria.

  “Substitute,” he said. “Come join us.”

  Grabbing her backpack from the floor, she dodged around the crowded room to the easels set up at the back.

  “Shouldn’t I stay with the rest of my class?” she said.

  “Subs always put on movies,” Bria said. “No one cares where you sit, as long as you get marked off for attendance.”

  “It’s basically impossible to get in trouble with the Fury,” Bria said. “Which works well for those of us with less compliant personalities.”

  “That’s one way to describe yourself,” Bastian said.

  Summer giggled.

  “Like you’re one to talk.” Bria shrugged. “There’s a reason I spend my study halls in here.”

  “Same reason I have two periods with Fury this year,” Bastian said.

  “Or it could be that your mom won’t let you do anything else.”

  “That is also true.”

  The substitute brought the class to attention long enough to take attendance before introducing the movie and dimming the lights. She settled at a desk in the corner and disappeared behind a magazine.

  “See,” Bria said. “Now we basically have an hour to hang out.”

  “Maybe I want to watch the movie,” Bastian said, digging out a bag of trail mix and offering it to Summer.

  “We’ve watched this same movie at least twice a year since we were freshmen,” Bria said. “It has nothing to do with art.”

  “It has da Vinci.”

  Summer took a handful of trail mix and turned to face the screen at the front of the room. “Is this Ever After?”

  “You’ve seen this movie?” Bastian said.

  “My dad and I went on this Drew Barrymore binge once when he was recovering from an injury.”

  “Movie binges are the best part of recovery,” Bastian said.

  “Agreed,” Bria said. “I watched the entire twelve-disc Lord of the Rings collection back to back.”

  “That is a long recovery,” Summer said.

  Bria took in a deep breath. “Yeah. Got hit by a drunk driver.”

  “Oh, shit.” Summer nearly jumped up from the table, but Bria touched her arm.

  “It’s okay. Seriously.” Bria half smiled. “The seat belt saved my life, but also tore up my neck and chest, nearly severing my carotid. Couple of broken bones. A lot of stitches. But shockingly, ignoring it doesn’t seem to change the past.”

  It wasn’t okay. Nothing was okay. Summer tried to laugh, despite her own past staring her straight in the face. Despite the fact that she could have been that driver so easily. Despite the fact that if her newfound friends ever learned the truth, they would never speak to her again. “Yeah. I’m learning that.”

  “So.” Bastian cleared his throat. “What’s your favorite Drew Barrymore movie?”

  “Donnie Darko,” Bria said. “All the way.”

  “. . . what if you could go back in time and take all those hours of pain and darkness and replace them with something better?” Summer said, separating out the raisins from the rest of the trail mix in her hand.

  “See? Perfection.”

  Bastian shook his head. “Good, but not her best. She didn’t even have a starring role.”

  Bria rolled her eyes. “You’d probably pick something like The Wedding Singer.”

  “Barrymore and Sandler, always classic.” Bastian nudged Summer’s arm. “What about
you?”

  “I was like thirteen when we finally watched it, so you have to promise not to laugh,” Summer said.

  “I make no such promises,” Bastian said, folding his arms. He locked his eyes on hers and smirked so that she had to stifle her own giggles.

  “Fine. Titan A.E.”

  “No way!” Genuine surprise lit his face. “That was basically my favorite movie to watch when I was sick as a kid.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I desperately wanted Akima to fix me with that healing tool thingy.”

  Summer grinned. “I loved how this crew of misfits saves the day. And the wake angels.”

  “Yes! I wanted to be an astronaut for years because of that scene.”

  “Your taste in movies is as bad as Abby’s,” Bria said, shaking her head at Bas.

  “Are you accusing our Summer of bad taste?” he said.

  A thrill ran through her and she ducked her head to tuck her hair back into place. “I do love bad movies.”

  “When you’re laid up as much as I am,” Bastian said. “You learn to appreciate movies as entertainment. Not everything needs to make a statement.”

  Bria tugged at the sleeve of his hoodie. “Right. Because you never make statements.”

  “Maybe I’m cold.”

  “Yes, it’s so cold in LA. You must be freezing.”

  “You are so cruel.” Bastian tried to pass it off as a joke, but the fear in his eyes was real. “What did I ever do to you?”

  “I just think there’s no point hiding who you are,” Bria said.

  Summer pulled her own hands deeper into the sleeves of her shirt. There definitely was a point to hiding.

  Bastian tugged up the zipper on his hoodie. “No one else needs to see my bruises or track marks.”

  Bria rolled her eyes. “Ah, yes. Your track marks. Because you’re obviously a user.”

  Summer snorted. “Do people seriously think you look like a druggie?”

  “He does have that pale, sickly thing going on,” Bria said, wiggling her fingers at him and smirking.